Nigeria’s infrastructure gap needs $3tn in 26 years to fix—Ovia
Founder and current chairman of Zenith Bank Plc., Mr. Jim Ovia has revealed that for ease of doing business in Nigeria to stand on the right footing, the economy must first, bridge the infrastructure gap by implementing the Nigeria Integrated Infrastructure Master plan (NIIMP).
In his lead submission during the recently concluded Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) conference in Lagos, he averred that the plan, which will require an investment quotient of about $3trillion, may take about 26 years to accomplish.
In a breakdown, Ovia itemized key sectors that must be addressed and went ahead to estimate projected financial commitment that will drive the sustainable reforms.
According to him, whereas Energy sector will need as high as $1trillion, Transport will cost $775billion, Agriculture, Water and Mining to cost $400billion, Housing about $350billion ICT to take $325billion, Social Infrastructure will cost $150billion and Vital Registration and Security to need $50billion.
Explaining more on his key paper; ‘De-risking Infrastructure,’ he argued that to accomplish the master plan, Nigeria would need to increase investments in infrastructure to seven per cent of GDP every year until 2043 which is an average of 26 calendar months.
